X

X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon  348 pp.

This is an award winning novelized biography of the man who would become Malcolm X. Written by one of his daughters and based on Malcolm Little/El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz's diaries and interviews with friends and family. The book covers his childhood through the teen years to his imprisonment for burglary at age 21 where he converted to Islam and studied the works of men like Marcus Garvey who his parents followed. Appended material expands on his life after prison and his work with the Nation of Islam which he left to create the Organization for African-American Unity. This YA novel is interesting and I learned much about Malcolm X that I did not know. And it fulfilled the last title I needed for the 2019 A to Z Book Challenge. I downloaded the book via Overdrive.

The Hundred-Foot Journey

The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais  245 pp.

A lively Indian family of restaurateurs emigrates to Europe after a family tragedy. They settle in a small French Alpine village where they open a restaurant in a mansion across from a classic French restaurant and it's owner/chef the indomitable Madame Mallory. Mme. Mallory is incensed by the popularity of the Indian interlopers and does her best to get rid of them. Then an accident causes a change of heart and she takes on young Hassan Haji as an apprentice. Under her tutelage he learns classic French cooking techniques and goes on to Paris to work as a sous chef and later open his own restaurant. The "hundred foot journey" represents the distance between and yet the closeness of the different cultures that clash and come together in the story. I have yet to see the film based on this book but plan to soon.

You Can't Touch My Hair

You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain by Phoebe Robinson, 285 pages

Comedian, blogger, and actor Phoebe Robinson presents this equally thought-provoking and HI-LARIOUS collection of essays on everything from being a black woman in comedy and how to tell if you're "the black friend" to her personal ranking of the members of U2 based on the order in which she'd like to sleep with them (Larry Mullins Jr. may want to change his name if he wants to move up a notch or two). It's fun, it's informative, it's scattered with plenty of excellent pop culture references, and flat-out great.

Additional recommendation: listen to the audiobook, which Robinson reads herself. From her introduction (where she claims that the book will be 99 percent Miss J from America's Next Top Model "and like, two sentences of Between the World and Me") to her post-credit plea to get the audiobook in the hands of Michelle Obama (this is part of her plan to become Mrs. Obama's new best friend), I was laughing, learning, and loving it.

The Leavers

The leavers / Lisa Ko, 338 pgs. Read by Emily Woo Zeller

Eleven year old Deming Guo is living in New York City with his mother, her boyfriend, the boyfriend's sister, Vivian and the sister's child, Michael.  Michael is like a brother to him.  One day, his mother goes to work and never comes home.  No one seems to know what happened to her.  After several months, Deming ends up in foster care and is eventually adopted by a couple of college professors in upstate New York.  Deming becomes Daniel.  After years of feeling like he doesn't fit in, he gets some information that may lead him back to his mother.  I enjoyed the book, Deming/Daniel is trying hard to figure out who he is...so are many other characters in the book.  The audio lagged for me at times but overall it was well read by the narrator.

Between the World and Me

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates  152 pp.

I cannot adequately put into words my feelings about this important book except to say I am glad the author was honored with the National Book Award for putting into words the experience of living in black skin in this country and the false construct in the concept of "race" in this essay to his son. I believe everyone, regardless of the amount of melanin in their skin, should read this brief but very important book. As a white woman of privilege I have not, and never will have those experiences. However, I know from friends that here in the U.S. the "crimes" of walking/driving/just breathing while black can and too often does result in abuses of power by actual and supposed authority figures. But Coates also speaks of his days at Howard University, which he calls his Mecca. Coates message to his son is one of love, fear, and a pessimistic hope that somehow things will change.

Loving Day

Loving Day / Mat Johnson 287 pgs.

Warren Duffy is newly divorced and back in his home town after his father passed away.  He inherited a run down "mansion" that his father never rehabbed. By far the biggest change in his life is the discovery of a daughter who was conceived during a short affair in his teen years.  Talia is now a teenager and has been raised white despite Warren identifying as black.  Tal's mom is dead and her grandfather is sick so Warren is a new dad and trying to figure out fatherhood, why his marriage failed and how to describe his relationship with his best friend Tosha.  Add to the mix, a bit of poverty, figuring out how to get Tal to graduate from high school (she dropped out) and how to handle the crack heads who hang out on his property.

Parts of this book are hilarious, parts will make you think, and Warren is a wonderful character who is working on a lot of issues.

check our catalog

The other Half of my hearat by Sundee Frazier 294 pages

Minerva and Keira King are twin sisters that made headlines around the world on the day they were born. You would never think that they were even related because Keira was born black like her mom and Minerva was born white like their Dad. Minni is particularly confused about who she is during the summer they visit their maternal grandmother who enrolls them in the Miss Black Pearl Preteen of America contest. Is Minnie black and does she have a right to participate in the contest? Does their grandmother prefer Minnie because of her appearance? This unique look at biracial twins explores loyalty, conflicts and the power of families to transcend racial boundaries.

The River Between Us

The River Between Us by Richard Peck  164 pp.

This young adult novel begins in the summer of 1916, with a St. Louis doctor taking a road trip with his children to visit elderly relatives in Illinois. It then flashes back to the time when those relatives were young. Twins Tilly and Noah Pruitt live in the tiny town of Grand Tower, Illinois, on the banks of the Mississippi River in the early days of the Civil War with their mother and their sister, Cass, who 'sees' things. When a mysterious woman and her servant arrive from New Orleans on the last boat before the river is blockaded, their lives are changed forever. Tilly's mother takes the pair in as boarders, the townspeople suspect them of being spies and the women of the town are upset at the attention their menfolk pay to the beautiful Delphine. Noah is smitten with Delphine even though she seems much older than his 15 years. After the war begins in earnest, Noah enlists and is sent to Cairo, IL where he and most of the other soldiers become seriously ill with dysentery. Tilly's mother sends Tilly and Delphine to find him and bring him home. The young women end up staying in Cairo, nursing the sick soldiers with the help of the former town doctor from Grand Tower. Eventually the truth about the "quadroon" background of Delphine and Calinda comes out, Noah is wounded in the Battle of Belmont, Missouri, and they all return home to Grand Tower. The last chapter returns to 1916 when the children from St. Louis learn more about their family's history.

This story takes place in the "Little Egypt" area of southern Illinois and most of the places mentioned are familiar ones to most St. Louisans. Towns as far north as Belleville are mentioned. Notes at the end give a brief history of the "free people of color" in New Orleans. Newbery award winning author, Peck, creates entertaining historical fiction through detailed, imaginative characters that are correct for the period.

Stuff White People Like

Stuff White People Like: The Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions by Christian Lander, 211 pages

I first noticed this book while shelving, laughed at the title and flipped to a random page to see what white people supposedly like. Apparently, we all like the car that I happen to drive. So when I stumbled across this again at the circulation desk, I figured I should probably just bite the bullet and find out how white I am.

The book is a list of 150 things, people, places, ideas, etc. that have been culled from the website, Stuff White People Like. Among the things listed: NPR, coffee, not carrying cash, adopting foreign children, Portland, Oregon, Apple products, organic food and IKEA. According to the handy-dandy checklist at the end of the book, I am approximately 50 percent white, which seems shocking considering that I have, more than once, been called the whitest person ever (on at least one of these occasions, my use of the word "bling" was involved).

So taking this personal discrepancy into account, I think that a better title for this book would be "Stuff White Yuppies Like" or "Stuff White Hipsters Like." If you were going for a general whiteness, you'd think that things like hockey, NASCAR and Lynryd Skynyrd would be included. Instead there is a blatant tone that things like these would indicate that the white person is the "wrong kind" of white person.

Putting my sociological objections aside, the book is pretty funny and a lot of the items listed had me laughing or thinking, "Oh, that's so (enter name here)!" There's a sequel to this book that takes a look at "white people" in different regions of the country. Not sure if I'll be picking it up, given that I'm only half the white person I thought I was.

Shanghai Girls

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See  314 pp.

This time the author takes on 20th century Chinese women after previously writing of the women in 17th & 19th century (Snow Flower and the Secret Fan & Peony in Love). The author does a masterful job of describing the lives and events of two sisters in Shanghai. Pearl and May are "Beautiful Girls", the supermodels of the era. They pose for artists who paint magazine ads and calendars and live a westernized social life in the cosmopolitan city of Shanghai in the 1930s. Things change when their father loses his money gambling and the girls are sold into arranged marriages and will be sent to Los Angeles. Before they make it there Japan attacks China and they endure a tortuous trip by foot to Hong Kong during the time of "The Rape of Nanking."  Upon arriving in Los Angeles they are encarcerated on Angel Island and forced to undergo multiple inquisitions by the U.S. Immigration before eventually being allowed to join their husbands' family. Eventually they discover the truth about their new family's status and the reality of the hard life they will endure in a country where they are looked down on and denied citizenship because of their nationality. By the end of the book Pearl has endured more than most people could bear as a dutiful Chinese wife and mother while May has managed to have a more western and glamorous life as an extra in Hollywood.

The story is well written and has a riveting story but in many ways it is "too much"--too much tragedy, too much coincidence, too much "I love and take care of my sister regardless of what she does", too much stretching the believablity of the reader. To be honest, it is a very depressing book but I still await the sequel which is due out soon.

Oreo

Oreo/Fran Ross 240 pg.

This is a hilarious satire written in 1974 and recently re-released with a forward by Harryette Mullen. This book didn't really find an audience in '74 and the forward explains that is was so ahead of its time. Of course it would have been ahead of me in the 70's but in my defense, those were my elementary school years. Oreo is Christine Clark. She can take care of herself in the most basic sense of the word. She goes to NYC to seek out her father who left when she was very little. Her grandmother spends a few days "packing a lunch" for her, the food fills a duffel bag. She doesn't know where her father is but she is smart and capable and he left some clues. This book is about her getting ready for and then taking the journey. It is funny, sometime silly, and always awesome.

check our catalog

The NPR story that tells this better than I can